Jeremy Abramson, MD

Associate Professor
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Dr. Abramson is Director of the Lymphoma Program and the Jon and Jo Ann Hagler Chair in Lymphoma at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Abramson earned his medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and a Masters Degree in Medical Sciences from Harvard Medical School.  He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Abramson’s clinical and research interests are in non-Hodgkin lymphomas, Hodgkin lymphoma, and CLL. His research involves identifying the design and conduct of clinical trials of new cancer therapies and cellular immunotherapies in these diseases.

Christine Chen, MHPE, MD, FRCPC

Clinician Investigator
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Toronto, ON

Dr. Christine Chen is the Medical Director of the Autologous Stem Cell Transplant Program and the Clinical Cell Therapy Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network (UHN), in Toronto, Canada. She is appointed as an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto (U of T) and is a member of the clinical research group for multiple myeloma and related mature B-cell disorders, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM). Princess Margaret Cancer Centre is the largest tertiary care center for cancer in Canada, performing over 300 autologous stem cell transplants and seeing over 400 new referrals for myeloma, CLL and WM per year. As Medical Director for the Clinical Cell Therapy Program, Dr. Chen has led the implementation of standard of care CAR T-cell therapy at PM, one of only a handful of centres in Canada certified to perform this complex, innovative therapy. As a clinical investigator, Dr. Chen’s research interests are in the development of novel approaches for myeloma and CLL, focusing on cell-based therapy. Dr. Chen also holds the role of Quality Director for the Princess Margaret BMT-IEC (Immune Effector Cell) Quality Program providing oversight for both standard of care and research cell therapy processes and maintaining FACT (Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy) accreditation.

Dr. Chen underwent her internal medicine training at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and hematology residency training at McMaster University in Hamilton. Upon completing a transplant clinical research fellowship at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, she subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology and obtained her Masters in Education from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (U of T). She therefore takes an active role in medical education and acted as the U of T Hematology Training Program Director from 2003-2008.

Matthew Davids, MD

Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

After obtaining an A.B. in chemistry at Harvard College, Dr. Davids completed his M.D. at Yale University School of Medicine. He served as an intern, resident, and assistant chief resident in internal medicine at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He then
completed his fellowship in hematology and oncology in Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, and a Masters in Medical Science (M.M.S.c.) at Harvard Medical School. He is an attending physician in the Division of Lymphoma, where he serves at the Director of Clinical Research, as well as Associate Director of the CLL Center. He is
also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and attends on the inpatient hematologic malignancies service at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Dr. Davids has an active translational research program in CLL and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, focusing on studying apoptosis (in particular Bcl-2 biology) in his laboratory, and leading
clinical trials to evaluate novel therapeutic strategies in patients with CLL and other hematologic malignancies. Much of his work has focused on the clinical development of new therapeutic regimens in CLL utilizing combinations of targeted inhibitors of Bcl-2, B cell receptor pathway kinases, and other novel agents, as well as utilizing checkpoint
blockade to enhance anti-tumor immunity in patients with hematologic malignancies who relapse post allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Frances Folkman, BScPharm, ACPR

Pharmacy Clinical Practice Leader
Adult Cancer, Southern Alberta

Frances graduated from the University of Alberta Faculty of Pharmacy in 1993.  She completed a Year 1 pharmacy residency at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in 1994.

Frances is a Pharmacy Clinical Practice Leader who has worked at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary, Alberta since 2002.  Her clinical practice is in ambulatory neuro oncology.  She is also the residency coordinator for the Alberta Health Services (AHS) Cancer Care pharmacy residency program.

In the area of diversity and inclusion, Frances has been a member of a Clinical Practice Leader anti-racism committee since 2020. She has facilitated diversity and inclusion discussions provincially with the AHS pharmacy residents for 2 years.

Martin Hutchings, MD, PhD

Haemato-Oncologist, Senior Consultant
Department of Haematology
Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital
Copenhagen, Denmark

Dr Martin Hutchings is a haemato-oncologist and a senior consultant from the Department of Haematology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital. He is responsible for lymphoma treatment and clinical research and leads Denmark’s only dedicated Phase 1 unit for experimental treatment of haematological malignancies, which is a leading site for early development of lymphoma immunotherapy.

After obtaining his medical degree and master’s degree (2000), he trained in nuclear medicine until pursuing his current specialisation in clinical oncology.  In 2006, he defended his PhD on PET/CT in Hodgkin lymphoma.

Dr Hutchings is an active member of the EORTC Lymphoma Group, and chaired the group from 2013 until 2017. He leads a number of clinical and translational studies in the field of lymphoma, with an emphasis on phase 1 haematology studies and on phase 2 and 3 Hodgkin lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma, while maintaining a special scientific interest in the role of molecular imaging of malignant lymphoma. He has written numerous journal articles and book chapters and acts as an active research supervisor.

Alisha Shivji, BSc, PharmD, ACPR

Clinical Pharmacist
Foothills Medical Centre
Tom Baker Centre
Calgary, AB

Alisha is a clinical pharmacist on the inpatient oncology unit at Foothills Medical Centre and at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy from University of Alberta in 2019, after which she completed an oncology pharmacy residency with Alberta Health Services. Her practice was focused on outpatient hematology from 2020 to 2021 and after which she shifted to inpatient hematology and blood and marrow transplant, with a special interest in adult inpatient malignant hematology.

Constantine Tam, MD, FRACP, FRCPA

Professor of Haematology
Monash University
Head of Lymphoma Service
Alfred Health
Melbourne, AU

Professor Constantine (Con) Tam is Head of Lymphoma Service at Alfred Health, and Professor of Haematology at Monash University. Con received his M.B.B.S.(Hons) and M.D. degrees from the University of Melbourne. After dual training in Haematology and Haematopathology, Con completed his Leukemia Fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas. Prior to moving to the Alfred, Con served as Disease Group Lead for Low Grade Lymphoma and CLL at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre & Royal Melbourne Hospital for over 10 years.

Con is passionate about developing new treatment for blood cancers. He is the global lead for the BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib, and oversaw its development from the first human dosed (in Melbourne) to successful international licensing studies worldwide. Con designed and performed the first global study to combine ibrutinib and venetoclax, publishing the results in the New England Journal of Medicine 5 years after inception. In 2015, he became the Australian lead for the pivotal study of Tisagenlecleucel in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, leading to public funding for CAR T-cells as standard treatment in Australia.

The publication record for Con includes 259 peer-reviewed papers in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blood and other top-tier journals. His work has been cited >18,000 times in the literature. Con is Associate Editor for Blood Advances.

Diego Villa, MD, MPH, FRCPC
Clinical Associate Professor
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Diego Villa is Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia and a medical oncologist at the BC Cancer – Vancouver Cancer Center.  He is involved in the care of patients with lymphoid malignancies and breast cancer.  His research interests include of management of mantle cell lymphoma, primary and secondary CNS lymphomas, transformed lymphomas, and the role of PET/CT in aggressive lymphoma.  Dr. Villa has ongoing research collaborations with Canadian, American, European, and Australian lymphoma groups. He is principal investigator of clinical trials evaluating novel therapies in B-cell lymphomas. He is also the local principal investigator for various international lymphoma and breast cancer clinical trials open in Vancouver.  He actively participates in the teaching of medical students, residents, and fellows at BC Cancer and VGH, and is the medical oncology faculty coordinator for the UBC Department of Medicine.  He has about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed literature.

Julie Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO

Professor
Chief, Hematology/Oncology
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NB

Dr. Vose is the Neumann M. and Mildred E. Harris Professor and Chief in the Division of Oncology/Hematology at UNMC which includes 32 physicians specializing in Medical Hematology/Oncology. Dr. Vose received her medical degree, completed her residency in Internal Medicine, served as Chief Resident, and completed a Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at UNMC. Dr. Vose also completed a sabbatical at Stanford University.   In addition, she completed an MBA in Health Administration through the University of Colorado Business School.  Dr. Vose has focused her career on translational research for improvement in the therapy of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) by developing a focused translational research program evaluating novel therapies such as monoclonal antibodies, immunotherapy, pathway directed agents, stem cell transplantation, and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) treatments. Dr. Vose has been recognized for her NHL research on a national and international level through research awards and invited lectureships worldwide. In addition, her funding record and publications in NHL therapy and transplantation research have added substantially to the research and knowledge base for the therapy of lymphoma.  She has published over 400 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals.  She was the 2015-16 President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the largest international society of health care professionals who perform research and treat cancer.